Epiphany
by chrissie0707
Summary: Missing scenes for 14X08 "Byzantium." Cas calls after him, but the sound of his name is distant and muddy, distorted by the blood pumping furiously in his head, and Sam ignores it. It's his turn, now, to decide that it's too much. To walk away instead of facing the truth laid out before him.


_Author Note: Sup. So I smacked into a big 'ol writer's block a few weeks ago, and this story was a random thought I had, and something I ended up using to GTF over it and get my butt writing again. _

_This taggy fic is loosely sequel-ish to my tag for 14X07, "Eye of the Storm." Just some connecting of the dots and filling in the blanks._

* * *

**Epiphany**

"He's gone."

There's a stuttered intake of breath behind Sam, a falter of step as either Dean or Cas is physically knocked back by the news. The suddenness of it.

They thought they had more time. _We'll figure something out, man_, he'd told Dean less than forty-eight hours ago. _We always do_. Drawing from the new role he'd taken on in his brother's absence. A leader, a confident voice of calm in the middle of a storm. He'd meant it when he said it, felt it.

_We always do_.

A promise made not just to Dean, but to Jack. All of them refusing Rowena's diagnosis. _Watch over him. Stay by his side...as he dies._

A promise broken as Sam was forced to do just that. Alone.

"Dammit," Dean curses softly. Then a rough sniff and a second retreat of weighted footfalls into the hall. This time, Sam rises stiffly from his chair at Jack's bedside to follow.

He leans heavily against the tile and clasps his cold hands together, bites his lip and stares down at the floor. All he can think is, _it shouldn't have been like this._

Castiel stands statue-still a few feet away, gaze directed at a point in the middle distance beyond their scope of comprehension. Between them, Dean fidgets restlessly, unable to be still. He scrubs a hand down his face, over his eyes.

They stand in the hallway for a long time, silent, not looking at each other.

Cas speaks up first. "Maybe we should...start thinking about next steps."

Dean drops his hand. "Wake and a bonfire," he says. Matter-of-factly, like he's not torn up inside.

Sam knows differently. His brother hadn't even been able to be in the room.

"Hunter style," Dean continues. "It's what Jack would have wanted."

Sam huffs, rolls his eyes to the ceiling. He pushes away from the wall and wordlessly stomps in the direction of his room.

Cas calls after him, but the sound of his name is distant and muddy, distorted by the blood pumping furiously in his head, and Sam ignores it. It's his turn, now, to decide that it's too much. To walk away instead of facing the truth laid out before him.

_It's what Jack would have wanted._

What Jack would have wanted was for them to _be there_ with him.

But they hadn't been.

A fresh flush of anger warms Sam's core as he clenches his jaw and shuts the door forcefully behind him. The anger is always brewing beneath the surface, searching for an escape, a target. The rage is his default, his emotional comfort zone when everything feels like it's just too damn much. Grief is looming, an inevitable pit of loss that will open in his chest, but right now he's angry. With Dean. With Cas, too, but mostly with his brother. For leaving Sam alone with Jack in his final moments. For making him lie to the kid.

_He'll be back in a minute._

Maybe it wasn't an outright lie, but by the time Dean came back it was too damn late to make a difference. Sam had been alone with Jack as he died, and he's furious with his brother for putting that burden on him.

But Sam had taken on that burden himself, from the very moment they found Jack.

_We don't know what he is yet, Dean. And I had it under control._

He pushes a hand through his hair, sagging against the door. The sobering thought tamps down that anger. He'd turned Jack into a pet project, whether he admitted it to himself or not.

_Jack is not evil. He's just a kid. We need him._

_Sam _needed him. Needed the opportunity to give this kid with a bloodline of evil the chance to prove everyone wrong. Jack was going to be a redemption story, for them all. He was going to have it better, was going to _be _better. He wasn't supposed to have an ending like this.

The anger comes back in a violent, nearly nauseating rush. But this time, it's directed at himself.

He should have done better by Jack when he had the chance. Should have protected him from Lucifer, should have figured out how to save him. He was the one who was there for Jack up until the end, but it was too little, too late.

But he can still do some right by the kid.

He moves robotically throughout the room, packing a bag with a few items, and drags on his jacket. The Impala's keys are on the table in the war room and he grabs them up without breaking stride. As he clomps up the spiral staircase to the bunker's door, he catches sight of Castiel standing on the threshold of the room. The angel doesn't try to stop him, doesn't say anything. Just watches him leave.

Sam pushes the car in a way that would piss off his brother, wrests a growl from the engine as he speeds away from the bunker toward the woods. Once the pavement narrows and the tree cover grows dense, he pulls off to the side of the road and cuts the engine, flexes his fingers around the steering wheel. Everything around him is dark and still and he can't stop seeing Jack's face, too young, and relentlessly hopeful, even at the end.

_Sam, what happens next...for someone like me?_

_I don't know._

_Then it's gonna be an adventure._

He sniffs and blinks hot tears from his eyes, hooks a hand in the straps of the duffel on the bench seat and throws open the car door. Legs feeling oddly detached, he stalks toward the tree line, twigs snapping and leaves crunching underfoot. It's a chilly, quiet night, and every rough exhale seems amplified in the stillness.

He stops in front of a thin trunk and drops the bag to the ground, crouches long enough to retrieve the axe he'd packed. He clenches his jaw, tightens his fingers around the handle, and swings.

Sam unleashes his anger on the tree, hacks with a single-minded focus until his wrists ache and his palms are blistered. Hacks until the axe snaps, splintered handle thumping to the ground and blade bouncing into the brush. Then he stumbles back, reaching blindly behind him until his fingers find the cool metal of the Impala. He slips to the chilled, damp pavement next to the car and thumps his head back, cursing his worthlessness.

He couldn't save Jack. Not from Lucifer, and not from this, and now he can't even honor the kid the way he deserves. The way he earned.

He doesn't know how long he sits there, dampness seeping through his jeans, shoulders shaking as what's left of his anger fades away and the night's chill settles in, along with the first hints of the grief he's been keeping at bay.

Sudden, disorientingly bright lights cuts through the darkness, and Sam raises a hand to shield his eyes.

An engine idles from mere feet away, and a dark, blurry shape surges forward. Dean, demanding, "tell me you didn't make a deal."

"A-a-a deal?" Sam frowns, shakes his head. "What? No. I was trying to build a pyre." His shoulders fall, and he makes a fist with his aching right hand. "I couldn't even do that for him."

"At least you were there for him," Dean says, so it's regret and self-flagellation all around, but that doesn't make Sam feel any better.

* * *

_Tonight...we get loaded._

They don't drink to forget, but to remember. It's hard not to think about Jack lying still and cold down the hallway, but Sam does his best, and it's not long before he's had enough whiskey to loosen his memories, and he adds his own to the stories in the pot. Tells the others of the time he'd walked in on Jack sneak-eating sugary crap cereal in the middle of the night and made him swear off the stuff.

He feels a bit better the more they talk, but can see that an unconscious trade is being made. The slump of Dean's shoulders grows more pronounced the better Sam feels, as his brother absorbs the anger and pain he's been feeling, taking his turn bearing the burden of Jack's death. As Dean's eyes grow glassier and glassier with whiskey and secondhand emotions, Sam's own head begins to clear.

He grins as Dean talks, but mentally he's replaying the past few hours, analyzing and dissecting everything that's happened.

Jack's weak, hopeful smile. _Then it's gonna be an adventure._

Castiel hanging his head. _Maybe we should start thinking about next steps. _

Dean's eyes flashing with anger. _Tell me you didn't make a deal._

His brother had jumped to the conclusion that Sam had been so overcome with the urge to _fix_, to _set things right_, that he'd taken off to make a deal to bring Jack back. But they don't trade lives. Not anymore. Not _ever_ again, even for untimely, unnatural deaths. Truth is, it hadn't even crossed his mind. It wasn't enough, but he knows that they did everything they could for Jack. To cure him, to save him. Employed Rowena's help, tore through every piece of lore in the bunker that had the slightest mention of angels, and -

Dean grips the bottle of whiskey to pour another round, and Sam covers his glass, heart pounding, mind racing a hundred miles an hour.

They missed something.

Dean's too far gone to be clued in on what Sam is thinking, and he's seen this look enough to know that the man has no intention of shelving the whiskey anytime soon. There's a very real possibility that his brother won't even make it up from the table tonight.

Sam excuses himself, barely sparing a glance back at the others. He stops in his room to change his shirt and splash his face with cold water, and sober the rest of the way up. Then he makes his way to the archive room.

They haven't touched this stuff in years, not since it was packed away. And for good reason; guilt surges through Sam as he drags the box down from its spot on a shelf. There are just some things no amount of time can help.

The box feels heavy with possibilities as he takes a route to the library that passes the kitchen, just to check in. Dean is alone at the table now, gripping his glass with a white-knuckled hand.

As Sam watches, his brother leans forward with a wince and drops his other fist to the tabletop. What he can see of Dean's face is chalk-white, his eyes squeezed shut.

He takes a step toward his brother, but Dean shakes it off in record time and drains what was left in his glass. When his brother reaches for the nearly-empty bottle on the table, Sam backs into the hall and continues to the library.

He deposits the box onto a table, drops his hands to his hips with a sigh.

Not even Castiel had been able to make heads or tails of Kevin's scribbles, but that doesn't mean the translations are another dead end. Not yet. They just need the help of someone who knows angel lore even better than Cas.

He slumps into a chair and scrolls through the contacts in his phone, has initiated the call before he realizes how late it is. Or, how early.

A vaguely familiar, yet different, voice answers.

"Lily Sunder? It's Sam Winchester."


End file.
